Beware Yon Dragons

A regular running monologue of opinions and ideas from a "country priest".

This blog represents the personal opinions of Fr. Chori Jonathin Seraiah, and is not necessarily representative of the position of St. George Catholic Church, in Republic, Missouri, the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, Bishop Steven Lopes, or the Catholic Church as a whole.

Correcting

July 11, 2026

"My priest never told me that!" or "My priest said that the Church no longer believed that." or, my personal favorite, "That's just doctrine, it doesn't matter." Yup, Catholics have been misled about many things over the past few decades, and a large number of priests today rarely do anything about it. Now, I have to admit, I really (really!) do not like correcting people; I am always concerned that I might lose them if I tell them, "No, you are wrong about that; the Church teaches something different." Yet, I have good precedent; Jesus corrected people quite often, and even directly told them that they were wrong. This is why the Apostles did the same thing so often after the resurrection.

Many priests today are afraid (some are even terrified) to criticize their parishioners or correct them, so they let them get away with all kinds of errors. A priest even once told me that he believes that God does not really care about doctrinal errors in Catholics. One of the worst kinds of neglect happens when clergy ignore protestant influences in the faithful (and there are tons of them that have crept into the Church since the 1960s). When they do this, it makes the laity less and less discerning about the errors of protestants. This leads to further diluting of the faith and acceptance of other errors.

I do not look for things to correct (honestly!), but it is not uncommon for me to hear people make comments, or justify certain actions, and all in the name of Catholicism. No, the Church does not say the sacraments do not matter, or that co-habitation is ok (yes, I have had to correct active Catholics on both of those issues more than once). I ask for your prayers. I might have to correct you one of these days (and--again--I really do not like doing it), yet because I have to give account to God for how I ministered to your soul, and I truly do care about your soul, then I am going to make the correction. I will try to be gentle, and clear. I will try to be understanding, but I need your prayers so that I do it faithfully.

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